Tina Lasisi

Tina Lasisi is a biological anthropologist whose work has focused on the evolution of variation within human hair. Lasisi runs her own research lab at the University of Michigan where she studies diversity of both human hair and skin.

Early life and education

Lasisi was born in Bulgaria; her mother was Bulgarian and her father was Nigerian. Her family moved to the Netherlands when she was 8, and she lived there through the end of high school.

Lasisi earned her Bachelor of Arts in archaeology and anthropology from the University of Cambridge. She enrolled in Pennsylvania State University where she earned both her Master of Science and PhD in biological anthropology.

Career

While studying at the University of Cambridge, Lasisi learned how pigmentation acts as protection against UV rays. Lasisi questioned the evolutionary driving forces behind the variety of human hair, Lasisi set out to develop an "evolutionary narrative to explain skin diversity beyond facile, arbitrary racial lines", citing social pressures on African-American hair and a desire to counterbalance historical biological racism. Lasisi conducted experiments using wigs and controlled temperature conditions, observing that curly hair offered the most protection and reduced the need for sweating, which would in turn save water and electrolytes. Results were published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology in 2016, and a follow-up study was published in Scientific Reports in 2021. but stresses the need for deeper study into biological variation.

In 2023, Lasisi established her own lab at the University of Michigan. She co-founded Black in Biological Anthropology, which promotes and assists Black biological anthropologists.